r yacht

We own a 1956 14 ft aluminum fishing boat. It is nothing special to anyone’s eye except mine. Some would go as far as to say it’s an eye sore. Do you know how a fishing boat can be an eye soar? The person who owned it before us painted the bow glossy silver with a paint brush. It’s hard to get a nice high gloss with a paint brush and why would you want something reflective and glossy on the bow of a boat? The first time we took it out, the reflection off the gloss nearly blinded me.
The trailer is so small we can’t even haul a full cooler in it without the worry of it causing the wheel wells to rub. Everything must be loaded in the truck on the way up to the lake and then loaded in the boat when we launch it.
It’s usually my job to back the trailer into the water so my husband can fight with getting the 6 horse power, Johnson Sea Horse motor to start. The motor is almost as old as I am so that’s not always an easy task. I’ve learned the best place for me when there is motor trouble, is as far away from my husband as possible. Even if I’m just trying to hand him tools, my very presence makes him uneasy. Yep, the truck is the place to be when the boat first goes in the water.
I’m not a very good backer of trailers. I’m an over the shoulder backer and I have to be able to see the boat to think in my head, tongue this way, back of the boat that way. I’ve heard the “put your hand at the bottom of the steering wheel and turn your hand the way you want something to go… I can’t remember if it’s the front of the boat or the back of the boat, but nothing works for me except looking over my shoulder. Of course this makes my husband even more uneasy because I should learn to back a trailer with the mirrors and this tiny aluminum fishing boat is a perfect example of why. You can’t see the boat because it’s narrower than the truck. I have to stand on the pedals while I’m backing. I have to look out the back window at the trailer to know which way the trailer is going.
I doubt you’d know this but if you’re standing on the break, craning your neck to look out the back window at a trailer that is barely visible, trying to remember tongue this way, back of the boat that way, you can sometimes forget which pedal is which. I think this is caused by thinking, “to go left, I turn right.” This is even more complicated when you normally drive an automatic and you’re behind the wheel of a clutch thinking left is right and right is left. The truth is, I’m lucky my husband is still alive after all of the times I’ve jerked the truck so bad I tried to knock him out of the boat. I’ve thought of installing a seat belt so he couldn’t fly out of the boat seat but I don’t think the coast guard would approve of such a device. Since I always get caught when I try to break the rules, I don’t think I even want to attempt the seat belt on a boat seat rule.
Who among us has never tried to launch a boat while it was still connected to the trailer? I’ll tell you who; everyone who has never owned a boat. So I’ve tried to launch my husband and keep the boat on the trailer. That’s not bad considering all of the times we’ve taken “R Yacht” out fishing.
R Yacht. Nice name for a 14 foot eye sore isn’t it? It got it’s name because it isn’t and never will be a yacht, but when we tell people we’re taking R Yacht out for the weekend they are impressed. They think big and grandiose and we try to remember that when there are four or even five people sitting in it and nothing anywhere is out of reach. Someone in the boat, no matter where they are sitting, can reach everything in the boat without even leaning forward.
So what is a typical day like in R Yacht? Well, we start the day by loading all the fishing gear and a cooler in the truck and instead of backing up to the trailer to attach it to the truck we pick up the ball end of the trailer and roll it to the truck. It’s light, it’s easy and no one needs to be guided back to just the right spot. (You see, my husband knows I’m not a very good backer.) Then we stop at the gas station and fill the 6 gallon red plastic gas tank with gas. It’s high tech. We drive to the lake launching area and we all get out and load the cooler and the fishing gear in the boat and my husband backs the boat down the ramp until he can get in the boat without getting wet. My job is just to back it down the extra 10 feet. I back it in the water and wait patiently until the kids are loaded and my husband is sure the motor will start. When it doesn’t start, I only have to drive straight up the ramp to a shady spot where he can work on it. I stay far, far away until he’s fixed the problem. Then, because he’s a smart man and doesn’t want to spend the rest of the day telling me how to back a trailer, he climbs back in the truck and backs the trailer to the edge of the water. One of three things can happen at this point.
We can either forget to put the plug in, requiring I pull forward just far enough so he can do this without getting too wet but not so far that he has to fear for his life and I try to back up down the ramp.
The second option is, we remembered to put the plug in, but forgot to unhook the boat from the trailer. This is my favorite mistake to make because over the years my husband has learned to make this mistake look like he meant to do that. The third option is we did everything right, the motor starts and he pulls away, a tiny little boat in the middle of dozens of speed boats in a vast lake. At this point I pull out of the water and desperately search for that one parking place I don’t have to back in to. It has to be the perfect one that is a pull through so when it’s time to leave I don’t have to back up. It might be 3 miles down the road and it might be that I just pull off on the side of the road, but better to walk 3 miles then to back the trailer into someone else’s trailer or even worse, into the side of a mountain. You see when you back into the side of a mountain the mountain usually wins, but that’s another story.
By the time I make it down to the boat dock, the kids have devoured most of the snacks I brought and have each spilled a soda in the bottom of the boat. I climb in taking my seat and my weight shifts the boat so bad, momentarily I feel like we’re going to capsize, and we’re off.
I like to drift fish. I like to put a worm on a bottom bouncer, open a book and drift. Once you get to the other side of the lake you motor back to where the wind meets the shore and you start over. I think my husband likes to troll because it’s a motor thing. Men like motors. With the history we have of being able to start a motor once and if it dies, not being able to start it again, I can understand my husband’s love for trolling. Basically, it’s, “don’t turn the motor off or it may not start again.” I hate to get stuck in the middle of a lake with no way to shore so I like to troll too.
My father liked an orange diving Rapala and to this day it’s always been one of our favorite lures, but nothing beats a worm. However, my husband’s love for using worms ends right before pop gear. He hates pop gear. He says it takes all of the fight out of the fish and you can’t tell when you get hits. I agree and that’s probably why I like to drift. I love that nibble nibble nibble you get right before a good strike and there’s no better sound then the zzzzzzz you get when a fish starts to take the line from your reel.
So there we are, traveling the enormous lake in R Yacht pulling a wedding ring and a worm through the water at the break neck pace a six horse power motor can propel four or five people, when one of the poles bends like a sapling in a hurricane and someone in the boat yells, “Fish on!” What happens next is symphony in motion. My husband puts the sea horse in idol and hands the pole to one of my children who either frantically tries to reel up as fast as they can or who plays with the fish, depending on which grandpa had the most influence on their fishing style. I reach behind me for the net, which is stuck under the seat and usually requires some kind of English to get it released. I get the handle extended to full length and hand it over to my husband who is coaxing the child on where the tip of the pole needs to be in order to make his catch possible. With a dip and a scoop we have a fish in a net and somehow or another, if I’ve remembered to attach the stringer on the boat and not just throw it in the lake, (again another story) we have a fish on the stringer and we’re off again. Sometimes the action is fast and furious and sometimes we joke about smelling of skunk but either way the day always ends too soon.
My husband motors back to the dock where I make the three mile hike to that one perfect parking spot. I drive back to the loading dock and stand on the clutch and the break as I look back over my shoulder to back the boat. As long as the trailer isn’t at a 90 degree angle my husband can usually load the boat on the trailer without having to get out and reback the truck.
I lurch forward wishing for the boat seat seatbelt and hoping our health insurance will cover his whiplash induced by me and that both children are still alive. We wonder, “What are the poor people doing today?” You see, R Yacht, might be an eye sore to you, but to us it is a fabulous adventure so full of laughs and good times we even forget we have to worry about the wheel wells rubbing on the tires.